Chapter 26 Shiloh
Twenty-Six
Shiloh
Early the next morning, I woke to feel the bed dip as Ronan climbed out and drew on his clothes.
“How are you even moving?” I stretched under the sheets. “I’m not going to be able to walk for a month.”
“Miller needs me. Holden and I are going to help get rid of his mom’s asshole boyfriend.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“Tenant eviction,” Ronan said with a wry smile, drawing on his boots. “I won’t be gone long. Stay here. The coffee maker is ready to go if you want coffee. There are doughnuts on the counter and fruit in the fridge… I wasn’t sure what you might want.”
“You have all that waiting for me? Did you plan on me coming here?”
“I hoped that you would.” He smiled a little and went to the top drawer of his dresser. “I would have given this to you sooner, but we didn’t do much sleeping.” He turned, and my heart swelled to see a silky headscarf in red and orange. He handed it to me. “If you want to sleep more.”
“Ronan…”
“If you want to shower, there’s shower gel for you, a toothbrush, and a shower cap. And I got a bottle of conditioner, like the kind you have in your bathroom.”
My jaw fell open. “When…”
“I might’ve peeked when I was at your place the morning after all that Dowd shit went down.” He bent swiftly over the bed and kissed me. “I gotta go. Be right back.”
He left me staring after him, dumbfounded. I wrapped myself in the comforter and dragged it to the bathroom to pee. Sure enough, he’d stocked up on everything I needed to spend the night. He even bought the same flowery shower gel I used.
“Ronan Wentz…”
Last night came back. All of it. The enormity of what he’d done for me was overwhelming. Hard to believe it was all for me.
I fished around in his drawers for a T-shirt. It came down to my thighs and smelled like him, like having him next to my skin all over again.
In his simple but tidy kitchen, I hit the button on the coffee maker, then drank a cup with a jelly doughnut from the same place I’d taken him to in downtown Santa Cruz.
My body felt pleasantly heavy and lazy. I climbed back into bed and tied up my braids in the scarf, then settled in to wait for him.
I must’ve dozed off. Some hours later, when the clock said it was midmorning, Ronan returned, a dark expression on his face. I came fully awake instantly and scanned him for injury.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “We did it. Chet won’t be bothering Miller’s mom ever again.”
“Then why do you look…almost sad?”
Ronan was quiet for a minute. Thoughts swam behind his eyes that looked like the gray before a storm.
“I hate that I sort of love it,” he said finally. “The fight. The adrenaline rush. The violence. Even the pain. It’s everything I want to keep away from you.”
I reached for his hand; his knuckles were swollen and red. “But, Ronan, you only ever fight when it’s to help. Miller and his mom. Kimberly…”
“The part of me that loves it is him.”
“Your dad?”
He nodded and tapped his chest where the Milton quote was inked into his skin. “That’s what this means. We were in hell, my mom and me. A hell that Dad made. But the devil is me. I was cast out of a good life, and I worry sometimes it’s turned me into something bad. Something like him.”
“You’re not anything like him.”
“I wanted to fight this morning. I wanted to make Chet suffer for hurting Miller and his mom. It reminded me of my family. Like I was being given another chance to save her.” He flexed his knuckles; his voice was low and stony. “I wanted to hurt him.”
“But you didn’t, right? Not badly?”
“Scared him more than anything.”
“And that’s the difference between you and your dad,” I said. “You stopped. He didn’t.”
He said nothing, and I could see he was still struggling with it. I didn’t know what else to say. My phone on his nightstand rang into the quiet.
“It’s Bibi.” I hit the green answer button. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you and Ronan on what is surely a morning of sheer bliss…”
I clapped my hand to my eyes and shook my head. Ronan raised an eyebrow.
“An envelope has arrived from a bank,” Bibi said. “The one where you applied for a start-up loan. It feels thick.”
“Holy shit.” My chest tightened, my heart clanging. “Bank application came back,” I said to Ronan’s alarmed stare. “My loan…”
“Esther is here,” Bibi said in my ear. “She can read it for me if that’s okay with you.”
I wasn’t exactly excited about sharing potentially bad news with Esther Morris from up the street, but I couldn’t wait either.
“Okay. Open it.”
I gripped Ronan’s hand and waited an eternity as the ladies chatted and mumbled and rustled the phone in my ear. Then I heard Esther say, “It looks like she got it. Oooh, fifty thousand dollars. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”
My mouth fell open, and I stared at Ronan, shaking my head. “I got it. Fifty thousand…”
“Baby!” Bibi cried in my ear. “Did you hear?”
“I heard.” Tears threatened. “Oh my God. Oh my God,” I said over and over, disbelieving as my future unrolled in front of me. My own business. The responsibility of it… The potential of it…
“Wait.” I held still. “Bibi, you didn’t put up the house, did you?”
“No, honey, I promise,” she answered. “This is based on the strength of your Etsy shop and your business plan. Your hard work.”
“Holy shit.”
Ronan stood at the end of the bed and began tugging the blanket off me. “Tell her you’ll call her back.” His voice was low and gruff.
“Um…Bibi, I have to go.” I smothered a laugh as Ronan crawled on all fours over me. “I… I’ll call you back.”
I hung up as Ronan bent to kiss me, slow and deep.
“What are you doing?” I breathed.
“You got the loan,” he said matter-of-factly. “Good job.”
Then he climbed back into bed to congratulate me in a very Ronan Wentz type of way.
***
We finally finished celebrating until I was sure I couldn’t have another orgasm for at least a month. But Ronan was shirtless as we sat at his kitchen table, eating fruit and doughnuts. The look in his eyes when I licked powdered sugar off my lip had me doubting if that were true.
The man is a walking orgasm machine.
“What do you want to do today?” he asked.
“I have to get home at some point to celebrate the bank loan with Bibi. I still can’t believe it.”
“Fifty K is amazing, Shiloh.”
“It’s not bad,” I said. “I’ve done the math a thousand times in my head.
The space is seven hundred and seventy-five square feet.
At forty-two dollars per square foot, that’s about thirty-three thousand dollars per year.
Divided by twelve months means fifty grand will cover eighteen months of rent.
That’s just to lease the property. Doesn’t include insurance, interior design—”
“I’ll help,” Ronan said. “Whatever I can do. I’ll build whatever you need.”
I shook my head. “You are too much. Last night. This morning…”
Because he loves me.
The moment you know your life is about to change forever hits like a sledgehammer, the weight of it heavy and monumental but exhilarating. I felt it when Bibi told me I got the start-up loan for my business. I felt it again in that kitchen, looking at Ronan Wentz.
I love him. I’m helplessly, hopelessly in love with him.
I opened my mouth to let the words come out when his phone on the table between us rang.
“Yeah?” His eyes widened; his face paled. “When?”
My pulse sped up as I watched confusion, alarm, and then something worse play over his features.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” He set the phone on the table and stared at it. “Nelson is dead.”
“Oh no,” I breathed, my hand flying to my chest. “Oh God, Ronan, I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“Not sure.” Ronan’s voice sounded hollowed out by shock. “That was a tenant in the building he manages. Said he found him this morning. I have to go over there.”
He stood, and I stood with him.
“I’m going with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Ronan.” I took his arm, gazed up at him. “You are done facing these things alone. Okay?”
He nodded and then let out a breath. “Okay.”
***
We arrived at the complex called the Bluffs just as the coroner was preparing to leave. The apartment building was in terrible shape—looking to me like it was on the verge of being condemned. On the ground floor, corner apartment, yellow tape had been strung across the open front door.
Ronan stared blankly as a gurney with a body shrouded in white was loaded into a van. My hand slipped into his, and he held on tight as we approached the coroner.
“Hey,” Ronan said. “I’m here for Nelson Wentz.”
“Are you next of kin?”
“I’m his nephew.”
“I’ll have some paperwork for you,” the guy said, peering at a clipboard through thick glasses.
“What happened?”
“Looks like cardiac arrest. Won’t know until the autopsy.”
I squeezed Ronan’s hand at the coroner’s cool, businesslike tone. He had Ronan fill out his information, clearly eager to go.
“We’ll be in touch.”
“Can I go in?”
“Suit yourself.”
Ronan turned to me. “You don’t have to…”
I held on tighter. “If you want some privacy, I’ll stay here. Otherwise, I told you. I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiled thinly, gratefully, and we went inside.
The place was a mess, with garbage and stacks of papers everywhere.
Ronan had given me a pair of flannel sleep pants to wear before we left.
I’d tied the drawstring tight and rolled up the legs, but they were in danger of falling down and dragging in the trash and refuse that littered the floor.
The TV was on, the chair facing it draped with a sheet.
“The tenant said he was in that chair,” Ronan said dully. “He wasn’t well. I tried to ask him about it, but he brushed me off. I talked to him on the phone, but I haven’t seen him face-to-face in weeks. I should have. I should have checked in more. Made sure he was okay.”
“Don’t think like that,” I said softly. “I’m sure there was nothing you could have done.”
“Maybe not. But what if there was?”
I had nothing to say to that.
Ronan took a last look at the apartment, then shut the TV off and went out. He strode into the parking lot alone and stood with his back to me, hands on his hips. I gave him a minute and then slowly approached.
“Ronan?”
“He was an asshole,” he said, his voice tight.
“My dad’s brother. Looked like him too. He was terrible to his tenants and tried to teach me to be just as bad.
A real prick.” He shook his head, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
“Yeah, he was a real prick. But he was my uncle.” Tears stood out in Ronan’s eyes now, turning them molten silver. “He was all I had.”
Ronan turned away, his shoulders shaking silently. I moved to him, burrowing into his front and wrapping my arms around him. He held me tight, his face buried in my hair, his big body trembling.
“He’s not all you had,” I said, my voice wavering. “You have me, Ronan. I love you. I love you so much, and I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”
He pulled back, his cheeks streaked with tears. His expression was heartbreaking, struggling to believe he’d heard right.
I moved closer, held him tighter.
“You told me you loved me that horrible night Mitch attacked you. And I was too scared to say it back. I tried to minimize it and pretend like I didn’t feel the same.
But I do. I can’t control my feelings or manage them like I try to manage everything else.
I love you. And I love how it feels to love you.
I’ve never been more scared, but never happier either.
Loving you feels better than anything I’ve ever known. ”
His brows furrowed. “Shiloh…”
When he said nothing else, I had a horrible moment of doubt. Maybe he had been delirious when he told me he loved me. Maybe he didn’t mean it.
Maybe he wasn’t even talking to me.
Then he took my face in his hands and pressed his forehead to mine. He held me close, eyes squeezed shut, his voice a whisper as if he were afraid the fragile moment would shatter. “You’re the best fucking thing to ever happen to me.”
“Does this mean you love me too?” I asked, my heart in my throat. In his hands. “I didn’t dream it, did I?”
He shook his head, still holding me close. “I love you, Shiloh. I can’t believe you’re real. Christ, I keep waiting to wake up to learn it was all a fucking lie. A cruel joke.”
“It’s not. I’m here, and I’m yours, Ronan,” I said, and then he kissed me, and the rest of my words stayed locked in my heart.
Forever. I’m yours forever.